The present invention relates to the measurement of broadcast audiences, and more particularly to arrangements for periodic collection of audience data via a modified telephone handset.
Many approaches have been proposed and used to serve the long recognized need for determining the size of the audience to a radio or television broadcast. This overall measurement is conventionally divided into two segments: 1) determining the programs to which receivers in statistically selected households are tuned (i.e., what program is being broadcast on a radio or television) and 2) determining the audience of the receiver in the statistically selected household (i.e., who is watching the television or listening to the radio). That is, there are inherently two components to the measurementxe2x80x94reporting the usage of electronic entertainment equipment (commonly called xe2x80x9ctuningxe2x80x9d data) and reporting the identity of audience members (commonly called xe2x80x9cpersonalxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cviewingxe2x80x9d data).
Of the many approaches to measuring the usage of electronic entertainment equipment, one of particular relevance has been that of adding a labeling code (sometimes referred to as an ancillary code or, more generally, ancillary data) to a radio or television program, distributing the code with the program throughout the relevant broadcasting system, and then detecting and interpreting the code when the broadcast signal is viewed or heard in a statistically selected dwelling unit. Teachings of the prior art in this area may be found in Thomas, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,481,294, Dougherty, U.S. Pat. No. 5,629,739, and Chan, co-pending application Ser. No. 08/654,309, all of which are assigned to the same assignee as the present invention and incorporated herein by reference.
Several approaches have been proposed or used for the complementary matter of identifying the users of the electronic medium being measured, i.e., collecting personal data. These approaches are referred to herein as audience member interrogation, audience member tagging, and passive audience member identification. As will be seen in the ensuing disclosure, there is some overlap among these approaches.
One approach to collecting personal data is that of audience member interrogation wherein the audience member is asked to identify himself or herself as a member of the audience. This may be done by means of a personal interview (commonly conducted by telephone), a paper viewing diary, or an electronic input device (commonly referred to as a xe2x80x9cPeople Meterxe2x80x9d) associated with a receiver in a statistically sampled dwelling unit. In the latter case it is common to store both the personal data and the tuning data associated with each receiver in the sample dwelling unit in store-and-forward equipment and to subsequently forward these data to a central office computer via the public switched telephone network on a daily (or other periodic or non-periodic) basis.
In audience member tagging methods, each person in a sampled dwelling unit is asked to carry or wear a tag that is uniquely associated with that person. In some tagging schemes, apparatus associated with each broadcast receiver determines which tagged persons are close enough to the receiver to be counted as members of the audience, and stores those data with data on the stations tuned or programs viewed. One such tagging system is described in Kiewit, U.S. Pat. No. 4,930,011, assigned to the same assignee as the present invention, which uses electronically active tags which are worn or carried by members of an audience and which uniquely identify corresponding ones of these audience members.
Tagging systems commonly require the use of short range communication means (e.g. acoustic or infra-red) between the tag and the receiver to avoid confusion as to which set a person is viewing when two receivers in different rooms are turned on at the same time. Longer range communication means (e.g. radio transmissions) are not practical because radio frequency (RF) signals pass through interior walls of the dwelling unit so that the strength of a received signal cannot be relied on for localizing the signal source. The restriction to short range communication means has generally imposed at least one of two measurement difficulties on such systems. In some cases, the communication range is too long for the spacing between receivers in a sampled dwelling unit, thus leading to ambiguous data. In other cases, the range is too short and viewing from persons too far from the receiver to be detected is under-reported.
In passive audience member identification methods, audience members are not required to take an active role in their identifications, such as by wearing a tag or manually entering identification data. Thus, the audience member is not asked to do anything that departs from his or her normal routine of television viewing. Approaches of this sort (for example, Lu, U.S. Pat. No. 4,858,000, which is assigned to the same assignee as the present invention) are commonly predicated on the use of an imaging device (such as an infrared or television camera) providing digital images of the audience to a computer running an image recognition program. While these systems are generally effective, they are complex and often very expensive.
A recent development in telephony is a cordless xe2x80x9csmartxe2x80x9d telephone comprising a base unit having a keypad and a small alphanumeric liquid crystal display (LCD) (e.g., one on which sixteen lines of seventy five characters each can be displayed). The base unit is used with one or more associated battery powered handset(s), each of which also has a smaller LCD. In some simple models, a small display on either a telephone or a separate unit is useful for recently instituted telephone services, such as Caller ID, in which the number from which someone is calling is displayed on either or both displays before the user answers the call. Communication between the handset and base units is by means of radio frequency. Known communication channel management schemes, such as code-division multiple access (CDMA), are employed with smart phones so as to permit the use of more than one handset with a single base unit.
A recent enhancement in television broadcast services is a dial-up database service providing local current programming information that can be downloaded to a caller""s computer. Also known in the broadcasting arts is the use of a dedicated viewer""s guide channel on a cable system that simultaneously displays a plurality of video images, each of which corresponds to a tunable channel. An audience member may select this channel to see an overview of what is available on the cable system and select a desired program from the displayed lineup.
The present invention incorporates one or both of these recent innovations in order to provide a less complex and expensive component for audience measurement.
An audience measurement system, having several embodiments, is built around the features offered by a smart telephone having a base unit and at least one mobile handset that preferably comprises a keypad and an alphanumeric display. The handset is modified for use as a mobile unit in an audience measurement system of the invention.
In one embodiment, the audience measurement system of the invention comprises an ON/OFF detector and a decoder coupled to a monitored receiver, wherein the decoder decodes a program label associated with a program being viewed and transmits the program label to the mobile unit telephone handset. An audience member provides an input to the mobile unit identifying himself or herself as an audience member of the labeled program, and the mobile unit temporarily stores the current program label and personal data in a memory and periodically transmits those data to the telephone base unit. The telephone base unit stores the data in a store-and-forward memory with other tuning and personal data from television viewing activity in the dwelling unit and periodically forwards the aggregated data to a central facility for use in generating television audience estimates. The audience member""s self-identifying input may be provided by means of the keypad on the mobile unit or by speaking into the mobile unit, which, as mentioned supra, may comprise a cordless telephone handset. The spoken identification message, or a compressed replica thereof, is forwarded to the base unit and is recognized, by means of known voice recognition methods, either at the base unit, or at the data collection central facility.
Alternatively, the decoder may be included in the handset, rather than being coupled to the monitored receiver. If the decoder is incorporated into the handset, the handset also includes an optical or audio sensor to detect the program code from the receiver.
In a preferred embodiment, radio frequency (RF) signaling is used to transfer data between the mobile and base units, between the monitoring equipment and the base unit and between the monitoring equipment and the mobile unit. When a receiver is in use, an ON/OFF detector can initiate a message to the mobile unit in order to prompt the audience member to confirm his or her identity. When more than one receiver and multiple mobile units in the sampled dwelling unit are in use simultaneously, CDMA or other RF modulation and tuning techniques avoid any ambiguities that may arise.
The invention can also be used even if no program-labeling code is found on a program being viewed. This may occur due to an equipment or broadcast system failure, or, the receiver may be selectively operated without the decoder. In such cases, the system of the invention provides means whereby a local program schedule is downloaded from a central facility to a memory associated with the base unit (e.g., during regularly scheduled data collection telephone communications between the base unit and the central facility). The schedule data may be communicated from the base unit to the mobile unit for display upon the screen thereof, whereupon the audience member can scroll through, or otherwise view, the list of available programs and can indicate to the measurement system which one of those is the one being currently viewed.
According to one aspect of the present invention, an audience measurement system for a receiver comprises monitoring equipment associated with the receiver and connected to a transmitter, a mobile unit having a transceiver which receives program data from the transmitter and an audience member interface which prompts an audience member to enter personal data and receives data from the audience member, and a base unit having a transceiver which receives the program and personal data from the mobile unit and a memory which stores the program and personal data. According to a preferred embodiment, the monitoring equipment comprises a decoder for retrieving and decoding a program code embedded in a program received by the receiver, wherein the transmitter transmits the program label code from the decoder to the mobile unit. The monitoring equipment also comprises an ON/OFF detector for determining when the receiver is on. The audience member interface of the mobile unit may comprise a display for displaying prompting messages to the audience member and a keypad for receiving key entries from the audience member. The system may also include voice recognition circuitry for recognizing voice signals input by the user. The base unit may further comprise telephone circuitry for transmitting the program and personal data to a data collection central facility via a public switch telephone network.
According to another aspect of the present invention, an audience measurement system for a receiver comprises a mobile unit having a transceiver and an audience member interface which prompts an audience member to enter program and personal data and receives data from the audience member, and a base unit having a transceiver for receiving the program and personal data from the mobile unit and a memory for storing the program and personal data.
According to yet another aspect of the present invention, an audience measurement system comprises a monitor arranged to detect and transmit a program label code contained in a program to which a receiver is tuned, a mobile telephone handset located remotely from the monitor and modified to receive the program label code transmitted by the monitor and to receive a personal identification from an audience member, and the base unit located remotely from the monitor and the handset and having a receiver to receive the program label code and the personal identification from the handset.
According to still another aspect of the present invention, an audience measurement system for a receiver comprises a mobile unit, located remotely from the receiver, including a sensor for detecting a signal from the receiver, a decoder for retrieving an decoding a program code embedded in the detected signal, an audience member interface which receives personal data from an audience member, and a transceiver. This system further includes a base unit having a transceiver which receives the personal data and decoded program information from the mobile unit.